Lancer Was Dead

"You're Lord El-Melloi II from the Clock Tower?" Rin Tohsaka asked in surprise. "I thought I'd misheard you."

Her surprise showed plainly on her face. Shirou Emiya had told her about Chaldea, but he hadn't gone so far as to describe every one of its Servants.

Still...

Rin glanced at the two goddesses. She did know who they were.

"I was planning to study at the Clock Tower after this Holy Grail War ends and I graduate from high school. I was hoping to attend your classes."

The two groups traveled together. They could hardly be called friendly, but their deliberate attempts at conversation had at least opened a dialogue.

"I know. Before Zhuge Kongming chose me, I came from a point further along the timeline than you do." Lord El-Melloi II surveyed their surroundings. The dim stone cavern was covered in mysterious runes he couldn't identify, along with circuits through which some kind of mental energy surged.

Only by being inside could he observe them so directly. Even so, neither modern mysticism nor the knowledge of the Age of Gods could explain how they worked.

That was a first.

They weren't Runes, Demon Script, or Magecraft incantations. They seemed to belong to a system that had never been recorded.

"In the time I came from, you were a student in a class I taught." Lord El-Melloi II thought for a moment, then added deliberately:

"Shirou Emiya was there too, studying alongside you as your apprentice. To be honest, it shocked me that the Shirou of this timeline managed to defeat Gilgamesh."

"I see. So that's how things went in another parallel world." Rin nodded, but didn't take the conversation any further.

She stole a glance at Shirou. If she remembered correctly, in two routes of that book, Shirou had